


The Future We Made

by Kiranokira



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Idiots in Love, Japanese Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is a Dork, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, That Goes for Adam and Shiro Also, background Adashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 08:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18656716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiranokira/pseuds/Kiranokira
Summary: “It’s a very special mark you carried over from your past life,” his mom says. “Someone who loved you wanted to be able to find you again, so they made that mark. You might even meet that person someday.”Keith absorbs that, then pulls his eyebrows in with skepticism. The scribble on his palm doesn’t look nearly cool enough to be something that amazing. It just looks like someone drew on his hand with a cheap pen.





	The Future We Made

**Author's Note:**

> I gave myself the challenge to write and post three short fics today, and then I got really wrapped up in the universe for this fic, so I failed my own challenge, but now I'm thinking of writing some more fics set in this verse with some past adashi and some past-life klance to explain where their marks came from.
> 
> I really love the soul mark trope, and I wanted to play around with the whole destiny/choice aspect of it here.
> 
> Enjoy! \:D/

On his third birthday, Keith holds up his palm and tells his parents, “ _I wanna know what this is!_ ”

He’s been trying to solve this very simple mystery since long before he could speak, but neither of his parents has ever explained it to his satisfaction.

It’s either a distracted, “Yes, look at that, it’s very nice,” or a firm, “Not right now, Keith.”

Sometimes he gets the worst one of all:

“We’ll explain it when you’re a little older.”

Well.

Keith is three now, and he plans to keep demanding answers until he gets a comprehensive explanation for the weird blue scribble on his right palm. No one else he knows has one, and it won’t scrub away no matter how much soap and abrasive fingernail application he uses. Some of the bigger kids at the park have even started singing weird songs at him because of it, and he’s _tired_ of not knowing.

His dad’s expression folds with consideration, then he raises his eyebrows across the table at his mom. She purses her lips and lifts her eyebrows like she’s saying she’s okay with explaining if he is.

Keith doesn’t lower his palm. They’ve gotten up to this point before, and both times his dad decided not to explain.

His dad sighs, “Keith—”

“I wanna know!” Keith yells. “I wanna know, I wanna know, I wanna _know!_ ”

“Keith,” his mom says.

His eyes well with tears, and he sets his mouth in a shaky, stubborn line. “I just wanna _knowwww_.”

He doesn’t cry often, so his father finally, _finally_ caves in and tells Keith that the weird blue scribble he’s had on his palm since birth is called a “soul mark”.

“What’s that?” Keith asks. He finally drops his arm and rubs out the soreness with his other hand. It hurt to hold it up that long.

“It’s a very special mark you carried over from your past life,” his mom says. “Someone who loved you wanted to be able to find you again, so they made that mark. You might even meet that person someday.”

Keith absorbs that, then pulls his eyebrows in with skepticism. The scribble on his palm doesn’t look nearly cool enough to be something that amazing. It just looks like someone drew on his hand with a cheap pen.

“Are you lying?” he asks his mom solemnly.

His dad laughs. “No, she’s not lying, Keith.”

“Who is it?”

“Well, see, that’s tricky. There are a lot of people in the world, and—”

“Will it go away after I meet the someone?”

“Well, you can have it removed if you don’t want it,” his mom says. “Lots of people choose to do that.”

Just the suggestion strikes a painful chord in Keith’s heart. “No, I want it!” he shouts. He clutches the scribble inside his fist and grips it with his other hand, protecting both under his chin.

“All right. Some people take photos of their marks before removing them, so you don’t have to keep—”

“NO NO NO NO NO!”

“You can keep it, Keith! We’re just saying you don’t _have_ to!”

“ _I WANT IT!_ ”

•

So he keeps it.

And now he understands a little better why the bigger kids at the park sing weird songs about it. He thinks it’s a dumb thing to make fun of, though, and his parents agree.

After a year of telling the bigger kids to stop it, he walks up to one of the biggest ones and snaps, “Stop singing or I’ll kick you.”

The boy leans in and sings louder.

Five minutes later, Keith’s mom says, “He did warn him,” to the angry mother of the boy he kicked in the neck.

Keith nods and puts his hands behind his back, rubbing the scribble on his palm with the thumb of his other hand. He wonders if his someone gets bullied about their mark, too.

•

When Keith is seven and a half, his parents move them from rural Shiga to a tangled, loud, concrete place overseas that Keith hates on sight.

His new school is much bigger than his old one, too, with three times the number of students.

As much as Keith likes his weird blue scribble and what it represents, these new kids won’t understand it like his friends back home do, so he tells everyone he did it himself when he was a little kid with a special Japanese pen whose ink never goes away.

“Like a tattoo?” one kid asks.

“Yeah, kinda,” Keith answers.

He didn’t really think his story through, but they accept his odd explanation easily enough.

Halfway through the school year, just as Keith’s made some friends and settled into the grain, one of the girls in his class walks up to him on the school lawn and says, “My mom says there’s no pen ink that doesn’t go away like that.” She points to his hand to clarify.

“It’s only in Japan,” Keith says. “You don’t have it here.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it called?”

Keith says the first Japanese word that pops into his head, and the girl narrows her eyes.

“That’s what ‘ink’ is in Japanese?” she asks. “Or did you make it all up?”

The other kids around them have gone quiet. Some are in different years—older and younger. All of them are eyeing him, trying to figure him out.

“No,” he snaps. “It’s the company name of the pen. Don’t be stupid.”

The girl says, “I’m gonna ask my mom.”

“Fine!” he says. “Do it!”

•

It doesn’t take them a long time to figure out that the word Keith used was “rice ball”, and that what Keith’s hiding is, in fact, a soul mark.

It’s…not the disaster he was expecting.

He actually becomes one of the more popular kids in class because of it.

He doesn’t understand people _at all_.

•

In broad terms, he knows what culture shock is. His mom and dad talked to him at length about it before they left Japan.

“Some things are going to seem very strange to you, but they’re normal to other people,” his dad said.

“Like this?” Keith asked, pointing to the scribble.

“ _Exactly_ like that.”

It turns out that in Japan and a few other countries, soul marks are private. Plenty of people do as Keith’s mom suggested—have the marks quietly removed at a young age and then keep a personal record of them somewhere for the future. Cultural myths involving soul marks are discussed in school, and people speculate in the tabloids about celebrities who may or may not have marks, but society in general is pretty tight-lipped about them.

The rest of the world, on the other hand, seems to shout about soul marks every five minutes.

Keith is deeply unprepared for just how prevalent they are in this new country’s culture.

Anecdotes, movies, theories, blogs, laws, treatments, scouts, headlines.

“WE’LL FIND YOUR SOUL MATE IN UNDER 24 HOURS!” one billboard claims. (Then, in fine print below the massive font, “Results cannot be guaranteed unless matching marks are submitted at the time of inquiry.”)

“What color is your soul mark?” asks a news anchor. “New research shows it may play a significant role in how long you’ll live.”

“I think it’s shitty to date someone with a soul mark,” an actor says. “It’s basically cheating.”

Keith hates it.

“I want to go home,” he tells his mom.

She ruffles his hair and says, “You can move back to Japan someday if you want.”

“I’m _gonna_. I hate it here.”

•

By the age of twelve, Keith half-regrets not having his mark removed when he was a kid.

“You still can,” his dad reminds him. It’s not as common in this country (people look shocked that anyone would even consider it) but there _are_ procedures for it.

“ _No_ ,” Keith says.

Because the problem isn’t the _mark_ —it’s the way _people react to the mark_.

Keith _likes_ knowing that he had someone who liked him so much they wanted to find him again in their next life, too. He doesn’t even mind what that person was to him: romantic, platonic, familial, whatever. It’s just…nice to know someone cared that much about him.

What he _doesn’t_ like is people asking him, “What do you think your _soul mate_ is like?”

Sometimes, when he has the energy, he says, “Soul mates aren’t real. They didn’t even call these ‘soul marks’ in most parts of the world until, like, a hundred years ago. They used to be called ‘bonding marks’ in Japanese. It’s just like…bookmarking a person you want to know in your next life. There’s nothing magical or whatever about it.”

90% of the time, the reaction he gets to that is something along the lines of a sarcastic: “ _Wow_ , your soul mate is so lucky you’re such a romantic.”

He usually shrugs—a new gesture he’s learned in this country—and says, “Whatever.”

•

At the second high school he transfers to as a third year, he’s surrounded by new faces, so he decides to take advantage of this blank slate by wearing fingerless gloves. He’s successful in hiding the mark for all of three months before it’s spotted while he’s washing his hands in the bathroom.

Forty minutes later, half the school knows.

“I don’t know why you tried to hide it,” Allura tells him. The chorus room is empty but for the four of them and she’s got Keith’s hand cradled in both of hers like it’s a wounded baby bird. Keith really wishes she’d cut it out.

She was his first friend here and he joined chorus at her coaxing. She and two other fourth years, Romelle and Nyma, always hang out with Keith in the chorus room after practice ends. They’re becoming a tight-knit group, but Keith didn’t like the idea of his soul mark becoming a constant source of conversation between them, so he kept it to himself.

 _That’s_ over.

“I’ve never seen one in person before,” Allura says, tracing the path of the scribble with her eyes.

Romelle says, “I’ve always envied people with marks.” She looks it, too.

“I just don’t like people speculating about it,“ Keith says. Hints.

“Can I see?” Nyma asks. Her eyebrows are pinched together, her eyes far away in thought.

Glad for the excuse to free his hand from Allura’s fascinated gaze, Keith uncomfortably presents his palm to her.

Nyma recoils. “Oh, _fuck!_ ”

•

“Okay, wait, wait. We follow each other on Instagram. He used to make these Vine videos about Cuban stereotypes. He has that same mark on his right palm. Like, exactly the same. But his is red.

 

Here.

 

Look.”

•

It’s not _exactly_ the same.

The scribble on Keith’s palm is smooth and confident, with clean loops and straight lines. The one on Lance’s palm is shaky and jolting, as if someone drew it while looking elsewhere.

But it’s a match.

That boy _knew him_ in a past life.

•

“Shit shit shit, this is _real_.”

•

“His name is Lance!”

•

Nyma talks for a very long time and then says, “I’ll send him a photo!” and Keith thinks about it for all of four seconds before allowing Nyma to take a shot of his palm. He watches from a place very far away in his mind as she sends the photo to Lance. In a direct message, maybe. He doesn’t know how Instagram works. Maybe he should have asked how it works.

He’s still stuck on processing that this soul mark thing is _true_.

He _thought_ he believed it before.

Now, for the first time, he knows what believing actually feels like.

“This is incredible,” Allura repeats. Her hands are still over her mouth.

Romelle beams at Keith. “I can’t believe we found him!”

“Excuse you,” Nyma says, staring at her phone. “ _We_ did what now?”

“ _You_ found him! I can’t believe _you_ found him!”

“Write _back_ , Lance!”

“This is _amazing!_ What’s he like?”

“He’s kind of a goofball, honestly, but he’s sweet.”

“Aww, that’s not like our Keith at all.”

“Keith’s sweet!”

“He’s definitely not a goofball, though.”

“He kind of is. You just haven’t hung out with him enough.”

“Long distance relationships are really hard, though.”

“Whoa, calm down.”

“I’m just saying! Cuba’s not nearby.”

“‘LA. N. CE. ANSWER. YOUR. MESSAGES. YOU. COW.’”

Keith doesn’t even think about bolting. He just does.

•

He doesn’t go home. Instead, he drives thirty minutes to the local university he’ll probably end up going to after high school and sends a frantic message to Takashi.

He knows he’s pushing his luck. Takashi was his English tutor for three years when Keith’s parents first brought him to this country, Takashi’s parents are good friends with Keith’s parents, and Takashi writes the occasional encouraging message to Keith, but still. He and Takashi don’t exactly hang out.

But Takashi’s got a soul mark, too, and he’s dating the one who made it for him.

He’s the only one Keith wants to talk to right now.

 _[Congratulations! That’s big news!]_ Takashi replies. _[Sure, come on over. Do you remember where our apartment is?]_

Keith exhales in a single gunshot burst of air and stumbles out of his car so fast he almost trips over his feet. He’s already parked outside.

He runs up the four flights and doesn’t even think to be embarrassed when he gets to the right floor and finds Adam waiting in the open doorway with a vaguely amused expression.

“Whoa,” Adam says. “Hey, Keith.”

Keith nods, manages to swallow in between haggard breaths, and asks, “Is Takashi—?”

“He’s on his way back from class. It’s okay, though, come in.”

Keith toes off his shoes and lines them up with the toes facing the door. The familiar gesture gives him time to catch his breath and regain a little control over himself. When he was eight years old, Takashi taught him to breathe whenever he got frustrated with the unfamiliar syllables sticking in his throat.

When he turns around, Adam is smiling like he knows why Keith is here. Maybe Takashi told him.

Inanely, Keith remembers the TV show from a few years back about the couple whose soul marks gave them telepathic abilities, but he quickly squashes the thought. Soul marks are just _marks_. They don’t _do_ anything.

(He certainly hasn’t ever heard any additional noise in his head from Lance.)

They wait for Takashi on the couch, the only expensive item in the apartment (a gift from Adam’s parents so they have something comfortable to sleep on when they visit). Adam sits at one end with one leg bent, his foot on the center cushion, and Keith sits on the opposite end, the epitome of awkwardness.

“Do you want to wait ’til Takashi gets back?” Adam asks.

Keith nods.

“Okay,” Adam says.

They both unlock their phones.

Keith likes Adam. He’s glad of that too, because Takashi’s been dating Adam for years now and it looks like he’s going to be a permanent figure in Takashi’s life.

When Takashi writes to them both to say he’ll be another five minutes, Adam goes to the kitchen to get Keith a drink. They sip from cans of soda in a silence that feels warm somehow. It gives Keith the time to wonder why he’s so panicked. It just manifested suddenly somewhere behind his ribs and told him to _run_. So he ran.

In the back of his mind, he always assumed that if he ever found the person who shared his mark, it’d be a more momentous occasion than just having a classmate present some guy’s Instagram page.

Lance.

Lance’s Instagram page.

Lance, whose soul mark is red and a close copy of Keith’s.

They hear the keys jangle before the door opens, and Takashi’s friendly smile is such a visceral comfort that Keith feels a thousand percent better already. And then, immediately afterward, a little embarrassed by how urgently he rushed over here.

“Um, sorry,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” Takashi says. He takes off his shoes, but he doesn’t point the toes at the door like Keith does. Despite having the more Japanese name of the two of them, Takashi was born and raised in this country, and only follows a few of the same customs Keith does automatically.

His presence is still a comfort.

Takashi sits on the coffee table, bag strap still over his chest, and prompts, “So, what happened?”

Keith takes a long sip of air, organizes his thoughts, and explains.

•

“Actually, Adam and I met in a sort of similar way. We used a dating app for people with marks. I think it only took two or three weeks to find each other, so it worked a lot faster than I was expecting. We agreed to date, even though we were living halfway across the world from each other at the time, and it’s been pretty great. It’s just like dating anyone else.”

“Yeah, the ‘soul mate’ thing is only a myth.”

“I figured that. So when did you two meet in person for the first time?”

“Well, we talked every day for about a year, and then I got impatient and flew here to meet Takashi. Without telling him.”

“Yeah, don’t do that to Lance.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, come on, it was romantic.”

“Stalking is kind of a crime, Adam.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Wait. So, after that, did Adam move here for you, too?”

“Uh.”

“Sort of. We applied to the same universities.”

“ _Adam._ ”

“What? Oh, right. Don’t do that either. You shouldn’t take risks with your education.”

“We’re _not_ having kids.”

“I’m fine with that. Keith’s good enough.”

“So…like…how old were you when you met?”

“You know what, we really shouldn’t be giving him advice, Takashi.”

“Why? How old?”

“Don’t tell h—”

“Fifteen.”

“Adam!”

“You flew across the world to meet Takashi when you were _sixteen?_ ”

“Yeah, my parents had that reaction, too. I was sort of impulsive in high school.”

“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t be giving this one any ideas.”

“I’m not going to fly to Cuba to meet Lance, Takashi.”

•

And that is true. He doesn’t fly to Cuba to meet Lance.

He _tries_ to fly to Cuba to meet Lance.

Unfortunately, Keith’s family keeps closer tabs on their finances than Adam’s did and there’s no way for Keith to pay for an airline ticket to Cuba without getting caught by one of his parents.

So what he does instead is create a nondescript, boring Instagram account and follow Lance’s Instagram page.

He reminds himself several times a day that he and Lance might not end up in a relationship like Adam and Takashi. He hasn’t even _written_ to Lance yet, so he has no idea if they’d even get along.

And who’s to say what kind of dynamic they had in their last life together? Maybe they were just really good friends. Maybe they were family.

If they had a romantic relationship, wouldn’t they have chosen something better than a scribble as their mark?

Or maybe they _were_ romantic and they were just…really stupid.

Instead of working any of this out with Lance, Keith limits his activity to liking his photos, commenting on nothing, and frequently wondering why this boy he’s supposedly connected to is so beautiful.

Sometimes Lance will post a stunning photo of himself, and Keith can only stare at the red scribble on Lance’s palm held up in open view for no apparent reason.

•

“He says he wants to talk to you,” Nyma tells him.

“Uh,” Keith answers.

“What do I tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you want to talk to him? You got me to send him that photo.”

Keith’s mouth drops open a bit. “I did not! I just _let_ you take the photo!”

“Because you wanted me to send it!”

From across the chorus room, Allura calls, “Leave him alone, Nyma. Just tell Lance that Keith’s sorting through his feelings and he’ll write to him when he’s ready.”

“Do _not_ tell him that,” Keith says.

“Sent,” Nyma says, lifting her finger from the screen of her phone with a flourish.

Keith rubs his face with both hands. He may or may not stare at the blue scribble while he’s there.

•

To Keith’s surprise, Lance has apparently never publicly talked about his soul mark. He doesn’t hide it—far from it, as it’s the centerpiece of several “artistic” shots of his hand—but even when people ask him about it in the comments, other people respond, “I don’t think Lance likes to talk about it,” and Lance never acknowledges the ensuing speculations about why.

Lance even ignores the people who call it ugly, but Keith can’t do that. He gets into four or five heated arguments on Lance’s behalf, in fact.

Although…it’s not really for Lance. Ridiculing someone’s soul mark goes so far against how Keith was raised, he imagines he’d still defend Lance even if they were strangers.

(They _are_ strangers, but….)

•

Week after week, Lance’s photos seem to follow a regular pattern of: food, thirst traps (which are extremely effective on Keith, who is parched), and scenic snapshots of his home in Cuba. Sometimes he uploads videos, and Keith may or may not watch every single one to get a better grasp on what Lance’s voice sounds like.

He also develops a keen appreciation for Spanish. (He’s not the only one of Lance’s million followers who has, it seems.)

He’s starting to understand Adam’s sixteen-year-old mindset and decides not to share this development with anyone. Takashi’s already sending him more messages than ever before, likely concerned that Keith is going to make some very ill-advised life choices based on their conversation.

He’s got good instincts, that Takashi.

•

Several weeks after becoming one of Lance’s Instagram followers, Keith is lying in bed ignoring his homework when the video of the Japanese comedian he’s watching gets interrupted by a message from Lance.

Keith’s brain takes a long time to process the information correctly, and by the time it has, the notification has disappeared.

Keith jolts upright, breath held.

He makes up for his seconds of hesitation by switching to Instagram and opening the chat window within the span of a fevered blink.

_[hey is this Keith?]_

Nyma must have told him. How did she know Keith made an account and followed Lance’s? Shit.

 _[yeah,]_ he writes.

Only afterward does he remember that he has the ability to lie.

Shiiit.

Lance’s next message appears before he can beat himself up too much.

_[oh awesome]_

…

Awesome…?

...Why?

“Keith! Your dad’s been calling you for ten minutes!”

“Yeah!” he calls back, staring at his screen.

What should he write back?

Clearly Lance wants to talk to him. Lance, who is a total stranger, but has the soul mark that matches Keith’s. And it’s definitely a match—the exact same random assortment of scribbled lines. It’d be mathematically impossible for anyone else in the world to have the same bizarre tangle of ink in the exact same place, right?

He has to write back.

Lance is waiting.

He has to write… _something._

…

…

_[gotta go sorry bye]_

…

“ _Keith!_ ”

“I heard you! I’m coming!”

He’s so fucked.

•

Two days later, Keith opens the chat again and finds himself disappointed that there’s nothing new.

_[hey is this Keith?]_

_[yeah]_

_[oh awesome]_

_[gotta go sorry bye]_

Four lines. Eleven words.

The most forgettable five of which are Keith’s.

There are several novels featuring soul marks on mandatory reading lists of schools around the world. If Keith’s life were a novel, it’d be on _no one’s_ mandatory reading list.

He stares at the flat exchange, trying to make it more interesting than it is.

Eventually, Keith decides that they’re never going to talk to each other again and that this is for the best.

•

_[why is it awesome?]_

•

He lasted twelve and a half minutes.

•

_[oh haha I just guessed it was you so I was happy I was right]_

_[how did you guess]_

_[Nyma told me]_  
_[wait you know Nyma right]_

_[yeah we go to the same school]_

_[oh okay good]_  
_[I was like]_  
_[wait maybe this is Keith but not MY Keith]_  
_[not that your mine]_  
_[*youre]_  
_[*yYOU’RE]_  
_[uh please don’t judge me too harshly]_

_[that’s…a lot to ask]_

_[aww you’re funny!!!]_

_[are you making fun of me……?]_

_[no it’s cute!]_  
_[it just surprised me]_  
_[I was thinking you were gonna be like]_  
_[wow this guy is weird]_  
_[and then stop talking to me]_

_[cute?]_

_[maybe now is a good time to ask if you’re even into guys]_  
_[like I know soul marks don’t have to be romantic!!]_  
_[and if we’re not that’s totally totally fine with me]_  
_[I just like knowing I found you]_  
_[whatever we were]_  
_[are]_  
_[will be???]_  
_[anyway Nyma told me about you]_  
_[then I kept seeing you in my notifs]_  
_[but the only time you comment is to fight people calling our mark ugly]_  
_[so I was like]_  
_[do it lance]_  
_[take a leap of faith lance]_  
_[so I did]_  
_[and now I’m gonna shut up]_

_[…]_

_[you’re not the chatty type are you]_  
_[that’s okay if you’re not!!]_

_[I’m glad you did]_  
_[the leap thing]_  
_[thanks]_

_[anytime <33333]_  
_[I’m lance btw]_  
_[wait I said my name already]_  
_[wait AND you follow me]_  
_[fuck lance shut up]_

_[…]_

_[judging?]_

_[a little]_

_[fair lol]_

•

After another two hours of fevered back and forth, Keith says goodnight to Lance and puts his phone face-down on the bed.

He’s smiling so hard his face has forgotten what its default expression used to be.

“He called it _our mark_ ,” he tells the ceiling.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hadakanomind)


End file.
